


Midnight at the Lost and Found

by athersgeo



Category: Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through - Meat Loaf (Music Video)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21861742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athersgeo/pseuds/athersgeo
Summary: Music helps. Music heals. Music makes you whole again. Music remedy for all your ills, at the lost and found.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 8
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Midnight at the Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

  * For [indigo_inks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigo_inks/gifts).



> This was an awesome prompt, I hope I've done it justice.
> 
> Also, I apologise in advance for any earworming that this story may produce...

Midnight at the Lost and Found

Kelly hunched down into her coat, not paying attention to where she was going. He was drinking again, maybe more, and so she'd left that morning with no plans to return any time soon.

The thought that she couldn't continue to live this way was bubbling under the constant babble of her thoughts, but stopping to examine that would meant recognising that she had few alternatives. So she ran. To hide from him and to try and outrun the deadend nature of her life.

"Goin' somewhere?"

The words brought Kelly to a halt. Looking around, it took her a few moments to spot the speaker and when she did, she really didn't know what to make of him. He was dressed in a teddy boy jacket, black lapels sharp and contrasting against the paler colour of the body, with a white shirt beneath and black trousers to match. That would have made him outlandish by most standards, but there was an ephemeral cast to his face. Something not quite human that Kelly would have almost termed pixie-like, if pixies were intended to be six foot plus and built like linebackers.

Dancing linebackers, she mentally amended, as she realised he wasn't standing still but was bobbing from foot to foot in time with music only he could hear.

He quirked a smile. "Goin' somewhere?" he repeated.

Silently, Kelly shook her head. That was half the reason she ran: she was going nowhere.

"Cool." HIs accent was weird. Overtones of Texas; undertones of something else that Kelly couldn't place. "How 'bout you hang a little while with me?"

Kelly was immediately on her guard. A strange man - and they didn't come too much stranger - inviting her to join him? She knew how that story ended all right.

As if sensing her suspicion, he held out his hands in a wide gesture. "I promise, I'm one of the good guys."

"Good guys don't hang out on street corners doing...whatever it is you're there doing," said Kelly, folding her own arms around herself and holding tightly.

"Well, seein' as I was kinda waitin' for you, I guess I'm kinda done here."

"What?"

"I was waitin' for you. And now, here you are, Kelly Rose. Born December 3rd in Portland, Oregon. Moved all round the country before you fetch up here, in Phoenix. Huh," he added, a slight frown now creasing his face, "that's a bit on the nose, but, eh. Shit like this is why it is what it is."

Of that speech, Kelly made little, except that he seemed to know a frightening amount about her. "What are you? Some kind of stalker or something?"

"Or something," he replied. "I'm Billy." And he smiled and sketched a bow.

Weirdly, despite everything, Kelly felt as if she could trust him. Her objective brain was throwing red flag after red flag but there was something about him that her instincts recognised and trusted. She shivered. "Who are you?"

He gave her a puckish look. "Billy. Like I said."

"No, really. Who are you?"

At that, he got a crafty smile on his face and for a moment, he stopped moving. "You ever have a bad day, feel really down and your favourite song comes on the radio and cheers you up?" Unwillingly, Kelly nodded. "That's what I do. I guess you could call me a music sprite but, eh, that kinda sucks as a name. So, Billy."

Kelly slowly shook her head. "I can't believe I'm even halfway buying this."

"Don't. Buy it all the way, because it's true." He then snapped his fingers and pointed straight at her. "Current is _Uptown Funk_ , right?"

Kelly's mouth hinged open, even as he started humming the chorus to the Bruno Mars song and started replicating some of the music video's dance moves. She'd never told anyone that for fear of what they'd say. "How...?"

"Magic." Billy grinned, twirled in a smart pirouette and held out his hand. "C'mon. Got something to show you."

And heaven help her, Kelly took his hand. He led her around the corner, to where a motorcycle and sidecar combo were parked. They, like his clothing, looked quaint and old fashioned.

"Yours?" Kelly asked.

"Uh-huh. 1955 Harley and sidecar. They don't make 'em like that any more." Billy gestured to the sidecar. "Hop in - lemme take you for a spin."

There were so many reasons Kelly knew she should say no. She climbed in anyway, and soon they were roaring out of the Phoenix suburbs and into the desert surrounds.

"Where are we going?" Kelly yelled.

"To the Lost and Found," said Billy, his voice carrying easily over the shriek of the wind and the howl of the bike.

Like so much of this encounter, the words made no sense, but Kelly had begun to recognise it wasn't worth pushing for clarification. He'd explain - or not - and there wasn't a damned thing she could do about it, except sit back and enjoy the ride.

She didn't notice when it happened, but she became aware that the scenery no longer resembled the Arizona desert. The sky was darkening, suggesting nightfall, and the desert shrubs had given way to strange, sticklike trees that were more like some child's idea of what a tree should be than the real thing.

Up ahead, she could see the bright lights of a carnival. And music. So much music. Overlapping to a blur and yet she could pick out individual tunes. There, something by Bruce Springsteen. Here some Frank Sinatra. The Beatles. Beyoncé. Even classical music, although there Kelly was stymied: her knowledge of classical stemmed entirely from old Tom and Jerry cartoons.

To her surprise, as they got closer still, she could see that there were people actually enjoying the rides. She saw a young boy with eyes that had seen far too much, riding the tilt-o-whirl with a smile on his face. Elsewhere a rumpled man was trying out an axe throwing game to try and win a stuffed toy for the woman next to him.

"What is this place?" she murmured.

"This is the Lost and Found," said Billy, pulling his bike over beside a tent marked Fortune Teller. "Sometimes people need more than just a song."

As Kelly climbed out of the sidecar pod, she noted a young woman, lurking in the shadows by the ferris wheel. From here, Kelly could see the black eye and the way she held herself suggested other, unseen injuries. The expression on the woman's face suggested she couldn't quite let herself believe this was real. In her, Kelly could see herself and she shuddered in recognition.

"Would I have got here?"

"You might." 

"Do they go home?"

"Some do. Some just need the break. Others..." Billy shrugged. "People are welcome to stay as long as they need and for some that's a long ol' time."

"How about you?" Kelly asked. "How did you come to be here?"

Billy's puckish smile faded. "I was a little boy of ten or so. Elvis was the king, though my daddy weren't so sure. He'd been hurt, see. Back in the war. Didn't mean to hurt me, I guess, but he did. One night, I ran away. Met a girl with long black hair in a fortune teller's tent at the county fair and, well, here I am. Helpin' others the way she helped me." He gestured to the fortune teller's tent. "C'mon." And he led the way into the fortune teller's tent and then through into a back room. Though this back room didn't look as if it was really a part of a tent, but some other, connected space. It certainly looked bigger now she was inside than it had done from the outside.

The main feature of the space was a pair of enormous, plush armchairs with a small table in between. The rest of the space was filled with music. Wall to ceiling shelves filled with records, tapes, CDs and devices that Kelly couldn't even put a name to, all labeled with artists and composers. There was even an iPod tucked away on one shelf, presumably to cover streaming and music that had no physical release.

"Tools of the trade," said Billy, his smile returning, brighter than before. "Along with this." And he waved his hand at an old fashioned radio.

"What's that for? More music?"

Billy shook his head. "It's for listening to the world so you know where you're needed. We all have something--"

"You mean you're not the only...music sprite?" said Kelly.

"Told you that name sucks." Billy pouted. "And no, I'm not the only one. I handle this part of North America. There's others who look after parts of Europe, Africa, Asia." He frowned. "I think there's two of us who just purely handle Japan. No-one could know all the music in the world there's ever been or ever will be. Even with magic."

"I guess." Kelly frowned. "You handle the whole of North America on your own?"

"Uh-uh. I just deal with folks down south, coast to coast and tangoin' with the border. Gina, she does the North East. Kurt does the North West. Jack and Diane, they deal with the middle of the country."

The names tugged faintly on Kelly's memory but she couldn't place them.

"So here's the deal." For the first time in their association, Billy looked sober. "I've been looking for an apprentice. Someone who gets it. Who gets the power of music and of what I do. I think you're it."

Kelly stared, a little bemused. "Me? Why me? Until today I'd never even heard of music sprites - I know it sucks as a name but can you think of a better one? - and suddenly you want me to be one?"

"Because you get it," said Billy simply. "Like I said. Not everyone does, but you do. Ever since you were a little kid, you've lived and loved music and it's the one thing that your dad couldn't steal away from you. Even when him and your mom were fighting, you had your music and it made you feel safe. In another life you'd have gotten that scholarship and gone to Julliard and sang and danced and shown the world how great music is. And maybe this isn't the bright lights of Carnegie Hall but it's just as important. More, even. You go on, like you are, you're gonna wind up dead. You know that, right?"

Kelly swallowed. The one thing she'd refused to acknowledge, even in the privacy of her own head and Billy had gone ahead and said it out loud.

"So here's the deal. Be the Phoenix from Phoenix. Rise up from your ashes and join me. You can do way more good this way."

"And what happens to you?"

Billy shrugged a little. "I get to retire, buy a farm and see out my days."

"You really think I'm the one?"

"You get to meet all sorts in this line of work and you've got the best heart I've seen, you're just too beat down to know it yet. But you will." He held out the speaker. "Here, listen. See what you think?"

Kelly accepted the speaker. What she heard was the voice of a woman, tremulous and overwhelmed. "Why doesn't this work? Why can't I do this? Maybe mom was right and I wasn't ready to do this. I'm scared."

"New mom," said Billy, at Kelly's questioning look. "Colicy baby. Not too much sleep to be goin' around. What would you do?"

Kelly thought about it for a moment. "I'd send a lullaby to the baby. If the baby sleeps, mom feels better right off, right?"

Billy nodded. "Go on."

"For the mom, maybe something positive. Upbeat--"

"If the next word outta your mouth is Journey," Billy cut in, frowning, "then you're definitely not the one I'm lookin' for. That song's so overused."

Kelly giggled. "I'm thinking more Fleetwood Mac."

Billy's frown morphed into a delighted smile. "I was right. You've got this. So send your suggestions out."

"How?"

"Just give it a thought, give it a voice and send it out."

Kelly hadn't sung for years, not since the failed audition at Julliard, but she gamely tried humming the first lines of the Fleetwood Mac song she'd thought of. Over the radio, she heard the mother's internal monologue change. "I haven't thought about that song in years." And then they were both humming along.

When Kelly looked up, she saw Billy was smiling. 

"Rock'n'roll dreams come true, kid. Welcome to your new life."


End file.
